Grenada is a very small island nation in the Eastern Caribbean known primarily for exporting nutmeg. Its first leader after independence from Britain in 1974 was the autocraticUFO enthusiast Sir[note 1] Eric Gairy. A Marxist government came to power in a coup d'état while Gairy was abroad and stayed in office for 4½ years until Ronald Reagan ordered U.S. Marines to invade the islands.

The administration believed that a Cuban and Soviet "plot" to build a new airport in a country with fewer residents than Allentown, Pennsylvania posed an egregious threat to the safety and national security of the world's greatest superpower. Multiparty politics were re-established in late 1984 and Grenada has been more-or-less democratic since then. They apparently learned their lesson from the Empire and have not elected a left-wing government since the ill-fated revolution.